Technological Capability, Employment Growth and Industrial Development: A Quantitative Anatomy of Indian Scenario

The recent spurt of economic growth in India has been described as ‘jobless growth’. In this paper an attempt has been made to examine the question of when industrial development provides required dynamism for generating desired employment opportunities for labour force and when it does not. An industrial technological capability based approach has been adopted to analyse the Indian Industrial development experience during the period 1980 to 2005, which is a quarter century time period. The main finding that emerged from the empirical evidence is that the medium-high-tech industries have shown dynamism in terms of generating employment growth. The labour market regulation view put forward by various scholars supporting the liberalisation policies could not stand the scrutiny of clear demarcation among job creating and job destroying industries under the same circumstances. The relationship between industrial technological capabilities and employment growth turns out to be ambiguous. This implies that weak technological capabilities adversely affect employment growth and heavy dependence on imported technological know-how from the developed countries is labour displacing. It is thus suggested that developing countries should invest both in institutions and industrial firms to develop technological development that suits to resource endowment, specificities of local conditions and suitable to the stage of industrial development. There is a dire need to explore alternative paths of industrial and technological capability development to sustain economic transformation process for achieving prosperity and reducing the time for catch-up development.Industrial development, jobless growth, technological capabilities, employment elasticities

Rural Household Livelihoods, Non-farm Economy and Landless Workforce: Evidence from the Village Economy of Haryana, India

This paper examines household livelihoods patterns of the landless poor in a village of Haryana by applying sustainable livelihood approach rather than the reductionist approach of income-consumption paradigm. The attempt is made to investigate and analyse the contours of life of landless workers from the multiple perspectives: literacy rate among male and female in each household, education attainment, income-expenditure patterns, rural farm and non-farm occupational choice, housing conditions and the role of social and financial capital. It also explores the desperation and vulnerability among the working class in a village in the context of above indicators. The economic and social environment locates the landless workforce in the brutal and vicious circle of low literacy- unskilled and semi-skilled works- low income- poor living condition which is not pleasant to asset creation. Keeping these actualities in mind, the paper indicates towards the environment created by central planning system, various welfare schemes run by the state and central governments and specifically by economic reforms initiated in the last quarter of twentieth century. As a corollary, landless workforce is doomed to live in vulnerability and desperation

Technological Capability, Employment Growth and Industrial Development: A Quantitative Anatomy of Indian Scenario

The recent spurt of economic growth in India has been described as ‘jobless growth’. In this paper an attempt has been made to examine the question of when industrial development provides required dynamism for generating desired employment opportunities for labour force and when it does not. An industrial technological capability based approach has been adopted to analyse the Indian Industrial development experience during the period 1980 to 2005, which is a quarter century time period. The main finding that emerged from the empirical evidence is that the medium-high-tech industries have shown dynamism in terms of generating employment growth. The labour market regulation view put forward by various scholars supporting the liberalisation policies could not stand the scrutiny of clear demarcation among job creating and job destroying industries under the same circumstances. The relationship between industrial technological capabilities and employment growth turns out to be ambiguous. This implies that weak technological capabilities adversely affect employment growth and heavy dependence on imported technological know-how from the developed countries is labour displacing. It is thus suggested that developing countries should invest both in institutions and industrial firms to develop technological development that suits to resource endowment, specificities of local conditions and suitable to the stage of industrial development. There is a dire need to explore alternative paths of industrial and technological capability development to sustain economic transformation process for achieving prosperity and reducing the time for catch-up development

Rural Household Livelihoods, Non-farm Economy and Landless Workforce: Evidence from the Village Economy of Haryana, India

This paper examines household livelihoods patterns of the landless poor in a village of Haryana by applying sustainable livelihood approach rather than the reductionist approach of income-consumption paradigm. The attempt is made to investigate and analyse the contours of life of landless workers from the multiple perspectives: literacy rate among male and female in each household, education attainment, income-expenditure patterns, rural farm and non-farm occupational choice, housing conditions and the role of social and financial capital. It also explores the desperation and vulnerability among the working class in a village in the context of above indicators. The economic and social environment locates the landless workforce in the brutal and vicious circle of low literacy- unskilled and semi-skilled works- low income- poor living condition which is not pleasant to asset creation. Keeping these actualities in mind, the paper indicates towards the environment created by central planning system, various welfare schemes run by the state and central governments and specifically by economic reforms initiated in the last quarter of twentieth century. As a corollary, landless workforce is doomed to live in vulnerability and desperation